Commission Should Seek Get Busy, Find Partners For `Just Right' Arena

January 15, 1997

A significant number of the nearly 1 million people who live between Boca Raton and Jupiter probably would agree that Palm Beach County needs a centrally located arena in which to enjoy the circus, ice shows, indoor sports events and other family attractions.

Unfortunately, that is apparently all they would be able to agree on. The current venue for such entertainment, the West Palm Beach Auditorium, is nearing the end of its useful life. Obsolete after 34 years and undersized at 5,600 seats, the auditorium occupies a tract of prime real estate that the city is eager to sell to a private developer.

Efforts to replace the auditorium with a larger, privately financed building on the 45th Street site of the former jai-alai fronton have collapsed under the burden of an expanding price tag.

Last week, West Palm Beach Mayor Nancy Graham raised the prospect of combining a 9,000-seat arena with the county's planned convention center on a city-donated 25-acre site within the proposed CityPlace downtown redevelopment project.

It didn't take long for that trial balloon to crash and burn. Central-county hoteliers who have already agreed to collect a higher tourist-development tax to operate the convention center cried foul. Traffic planners raised the spectre of huge snarls. Arbiters of aesthetics argued that the architectural compromises necessary to combine the projects would result in two mediocre structures.

In the face of this opposition, Graham and County Commissioner Burt Aaronson, the arena's main supporter, retreated. Graham offered another 20-acre site in a proposed city park on 45th Street and Military Trail. Aaronson said the project is barely alive.

Aaronson and his colleagues would prefer for private investors to step forward and pick up the estimated $36 million construction tab, but that solution appears less likely now that minor-league sports team owners Bruce Frey and Bud Paxson have withdrawn their offer to build at the jai-alai site.

With time running out for the existing auditorium, the County Commission needs to show some fancy footwork soon if it hopes to retain a showcase for the Ringling Brothers Circus, Disney on Ice, Florida Beachdogs, Bobcats and similar drawing cards.

Commissioners should establish a firm deadline and invite private partners to come forward and establish a firm deadline. If it becomes apparent that public funds will be required to build an arena, commissioners should consider such alternatives as using property-tax revenue, seeking voter approval for a bond issue and imposing ticket-price surcharges.

Palm Beach County residents and visitors need and deserve a right-sized multipurpose arena. Elected officials should not allow a genuine community asset to disappear by default.